Currently, the best way to get clean optical motion capture data is to rely on a large number of cameras. Sometimes as many as 30 to 60. Studios want to make sure that they can capture marker movement from any angle, and studios accomplish this by having many different cameras located across the entire studio.
This way, even if there are multiple actors or props potentially blocking a marker, there will always be other cameras able to track the marker from a different angle. That’s because if a marker goes missing, even very briefly, that will require many hours of clean up in post production.
So the largest studios invest in many cameras to make sure there are enough redundancies to cover almost any possible movement, without much risk of any markers ever being blocked. The idea is that given the high amount of time and money to fix missing markers, it’s cheaper to invest in many more cameras than you need, even if each provides diminishing returns.
This seems entirely reasonable. Until you realize that these cameras can cost between $5,000–10,000 … each. 🤯
We think there’s a much better way.
Kapnetix makes missing markers much less of a headache. Instead of the 5 days that it can take professional animators to clean up a single hour of motion footage, our AI model can produce the same results in just minutes.
Because no matter how many cameras you install in your studio, fixing missing markers will always be a part of optical mocap. So why not let our AI model handle the most tedious part of the process? That way your animators can focus on what they love, being creative and bringing their vision to life.
And when you can clean up these missing markers in just minutes, is it really worth it to invest in so many redundant cameras just to catch a blocked marker every once in a while?
We don’t think so. And if you hop into a short call with us, we’re pretty sure that we can convince you of the same.
A proper motion capture studio will always be expensive, and will be a barrier for any new games or animation company to overcome. But we think if we can slash the cost of an entry level studio by even $20,000–30,000, then we all will see a lot more studios able to bring their vision to life.
We can’t wait to see what you create. 💖
